Mountain Jam

May 17th- Today was a nice and relaxing day running errands. The weather was crummy outside so I had no problem staying off the trail. All of our things are finally dry after hiking in the rain last week. Ordered our changes of gear for the summer months which included a smaller cook pot and an alcohol stove. We decided to give the tunafish and summer sausage a break this week and go with pb&j. We couldn't find small container of jelly so I plan to pull a "Haley and Mike" and get some packets from a restaurant in the morning.

May 18th- While packing our things this morning Shadow realizes that the pump on our stove had broken. He rushed to the hardware store to by some Gorilla glue. With no luck in fixing the handle, we resorted to using our back up coke can alcohol stove. I'm so glad we ordered that new stove yesterday! I guess the more moving parts you have the more things can break. Remember the other posting that talked about our food allotments? Well, I took 6 jelly packets from the restaurant this morning. That's enough for 3 pb&j each. We sat down for lunch about 5 miles in and I had the packets laying on the ground in a ziplock baggy beside me to make the sandwiches. Shadow walks up and starts to take a seat when I hear "pop..pop". I look down to see 2 jelly packets smashed! Needless to say, he had a pb sandwich for lunch. Met a couple (Suppa Chef and Speedy Gonzales) there who was also having lunch. Due to a craving of Dairy Queen, they turned around 8 miles North of Pearisburg and hiked back to eat another burger and shake...now that's a craving!

We hiked 8 miles today and camped early. The four of us had just finished eating dinner, when I saw something that made me dry heave. California was scraping the food left in his bowl to clean it. He added a little water to the bowl and started swishing it around. The next thing I know, he is drinking it! His point is that he worked hard to get the water and wasn't going to waste it. We all had a good laugh at his expense to which he said "Don't tell my wife."

Country Mouse and Shadow